The first chapter of Henry Jenkins’ “Spreadable Media” is
dedicated to assessing the disconnects in rhetoric and aspirations of Web 2.0. The
chapter is titled “Where Web 2.0 Went Wrong” because Jenkins believes that the
rise of this interactive digital forum has hindered the integrity of
producer-consumer online relationships, and ultimately skewed the “moral
economy” of the World Wide Web. Henry Jenkins is an American media scholar and
current professor of communication, journalism, and cinematic arts at the USC
Annenberg School for Communication. He completed his undergraduate at
Georgia State University and later received his PhD in communication arts from
the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since then, he has written several books,
including “Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide” and “Textual
Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture.” His book, “Spreadable
Media,” was published last year in New York and has received nothing but
positive feedback.
The book as a whole aims to show how people are spreading ideas through digital platforms and the complications that come with this transmission in all fields of life, including but not limited to politics, business, and daily activities. Throughout the first chapter, Jenkins scrutinizes the business model of Web 2.0 and blames producers for capturing and capitalizing on the public’s desire to participate. He uses examples from music, comics, film, and advertising to outline the invasion of a “moral economy” by producers. To support his ideas, he uses analogies like the “uprisings in early Modern Europe, to the barn raising as a nineteenth-century community ritual, to medieval craftsmen and their guilds as an alternative to alienated labor, and to the gift economy as a system of exchange in traditional societies.”
Jenkins also uses terms that are crucial to understand when evaluating his argument. The whole chapter is about Web 2.0, which is the idea that the Internet has grown a new layer of communication between producer and audience. The original Internet, Web 1.0, was a place where a user interacts with a one-dimensional platform. It was person versus website. Web 2.0, however, is a two-dimensional Internet where people are interacting with other people. This is important because in this chapter, Jenkins literally discusses where Web 2.0 went wrong. He claims that producers of Web 2.0 companies are capitalizing on their audience’s ideas and turning their “gifts” into “commodities.” He uses references from Lewis Hyde’s book, “The Gift,” to explain how commodities have “value,” while gifts have “worth.” He elaborates on the incongruence between producers’ and audiences’ intentions for participation on the web. The main idea is that users of Web 2.0 companies such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Twitter are offering their ideas as gifts to the online world. They view their contributions as a form of self-expression and participate simply because it is a hobby. The reason Web 2.0 went wrong, according to Jenkins, is because the producers are quantifying and monetizing the material of their users. They are profiting off of their audience and not paying for this “free labor.”
I found this article to be very eye opening because I have never considered the intentions of the interactive sites I use daily. Now that I think about it, it is unusual that Web 2.0 companies would offer users a place to express themselves and share information for “free.” This article has showed me that nothing online is free, and that the currency of the Internet is the information we as users offer. This makes me question the amount of information I contribute, because I have now learned that companies could be using my voluntary “gifts” as sources of revenue.
The book as a whole aims to show how people are spreading ideas through digital platforms and the complications that come with this transmission in all fields of life, including but not limited to politics, business, and daily activities. Throughout the first chapter, Jenkins scrutinizes the business model of Web 2.0 and blames producers for capturing and capitalizing on the public’s desire to participate. He uses examples from music, comics, film, and advertising to outline the invasion of a “moral economy” by producers. To support his ideas, he uses analogies like the “uprisings in early Modern Europe, to the barn raising as a nineteenth-century community ritual, to medieval craftsmen and their guilds as an alternative to alienated labor, and to the gift economy as a system of exchange in traditional societies.”
Jenkins also uses terms that are crucial to understand when evaluating his argument. The whole chapter is about Web 2.0, which is the idea that the Internet has grown a new layer of communication between producer and audience. The original Internet, Web 1.0, was a place where a user interacts with a one-dimensional platform. It was person versus website. Web 2.0, however, is a two-dimensional Internet where people are interacting with other people. This is important because in this chapter, Jenkins literally discusses where Web 2.0 went wrong. He claims that producers of Web 2.0 companies are capitalizing on their audience’s ideas and turning their “gifts” into “commodities.” He uses references from Lewis Hyde’s book, “The Gift,” to explain how commodities have “value,” while gifts have “worth.” He elaborates on the incongruence between producers’ and audiences’ intentions for participation on the web. The main idea is that users of Web 2.0 companies such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Twitter are offering their ideas as gifts to the online world. They view their contributions as a form of self-expression and participate simply because it is a hobby. The reason Web 2.0 went wrong, according to Jenkins, is because the producers are quantifying and monetizing the material of their users. They are profiting off of their audience and not paying for this “free labor.”
I found this article to be very eye opening because I have never considered the intentions of the interactive sites I use daily. Now that I think about it, it is unusual that Web 2.0 companies would offer users a place to express themselves and share information for “free.” This article has showed me that nothing online is free, and that the currency of the Internet is the information we as users offer. This makes me question the amount of information I contribute, because I have now learned that companies could be using my voluntary “gifts” as sources of revenue.
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